Posted on 12/29/2010 11:03:28 AM PST by Kaslin
So now openly gay soldiers get to fight and die in neocon-imperialist wars too?
David Brooks saw such ironic progressive victories coming. In his book "Bobos in Paradise," he wrote that everything "transgressive" gets "digested by the mainstream bourgeois order, and all the cultural weapons that once were used to undermine middle-class morality ... are drained of their subversive content."
Two decades ago, the gay left wanted to smash the bourgeois prisons of monogamy, capitalistic enterprise and patriotic values and bask in the warm sun of bohemian "free love" and avant-garde values. In this, they were simply picking up the torch from the straight left of the 1960s and 1970s, who had sought to throw off the sexual hang-ups of their parents' generation along with their gray flannel suits.
As a sexual lifestyle experiment, they failed pretty miserably, the greatest proof being that the affluent and educated children (and grandchildren) of the baby boomers have re-embraced the bourgeois notion of marriage as an essential part of a successful life. Sadly, it's the lower middle class that increasingly sees marriage as an out-of-reach luxury. The irony is that such bourgeois values -- monogamy, hard work, etc. -- are the best guarantors of success and happiness.
Of course, the lunacy of the bohemian free-love shtick should have been obvious from the get-go. For instance, when Michael Lerner, a member of the anti-Vietnam War "Seattle Seven," did marry, in 1971, the couple exchanged rings made from the fuselage of a U.S. aircraft downed over Vietnam and cut into a cake inscribed in icing with a Weatherman catchphrase, "Smash Monogamy."
Today Lerner is a (divorced and remarried) somewhat preposterous, prosperous progressive rabbi who officiates at all kinds of marriages -- gay and straight -- and, like pretty much the entire left, loves the idea of open gays becoming cogs in the military-industrial complex.
The gay experiment with open bohemianism was arguably shorter. Of course, AIDS played an obvious and tragic role in focusing attention on the downside of promiscuity. But even so, the sweeping embrace of bourgeois lifestyles by the gay community has been stunning.
Nowhere is this more evident -- and perhaps exaggerated -- than in popular culture. Watch ABC's "Modern Family." The sitcom is supposed to be "subversive" in part because it features a gay couple with an adopted daughter from Asia. And you can see why both liberal proponents and conservative opponents of gay marriage see it that way. But imagine you hate the institution of marriage and then watch "Modern Family's" hardworking bourgeois gay couple through those eyes. What's being subverted? Traditional marriage, or some bohemian identity politics fantasy of homosexuality?
By the way, according to a recent study, "Modern Family" is the No. 1 sitcom among Republicans (and the third show overall behind Glenn Beck and "The Amazing Race") but not even in the top 15 among Democrats, who prefer darker shows like Showtime's "Dexter," about a serial killer trying to balance work and family between murders.
Or look at the decision to let gays openly serve in the military through the eyes of a principled hater of all things military. From that perspective, gays have just been co-opted by The Man. Meanwhile, the folks who used "don't ask, don't tell" as an excuse to keep the military from recruiting on campuses just saw their argument go up in flames.
Personally, I have always felt that gay marriage was an inevitability, for good or ill (most likely both). I do not think that the arguments against gay marriage are all grounded in bigotry, and I find some of the arguments persuasive. But I also find it cruel and absurd to tell gays that living the free-love lifestyle is abominable while at the same time telling them that their committed relationships are illegitimate too.
Many of my conservative friends -- who oppose both civil unions and gay marriage and object to rampant promiscuity --often act as if there's some grand alternative lifestyle for gays. But there isn't. And given that open homosexuality is simply a fact of life, the rise of the HoBos -- the homosexual bourgeoisie -- strikes me as good news.
Hi, Wagglebee. Did you have a question for me? I didn’t want to leave you unanswered.
How does one handle a nose picker? Do you grant them extra benefits because they claim they were born that way? Do you force people into accepting nose picking as a value to society worthy of protection in public? Do you indoctrinate children to accept the many splendored aspects of nose picking -that nose picking is a valid basis for rights -that nose picking is a valid basis for marriage?
You ask the wrong question -opposing the homosexual agenda has NOTHING at all to do with handling people. It has everything to do with a just discrimination of an activity that society resoundingly has determined is of no value. Homosexual sex may be legal; however, that is all it is.
Yes, I'm curious why you showed up on this thread to defend what could best be described as attempts to legitimize homosexuality?
Okay, I understand what you’re saying. I understand the “defensive” steps of not kow-towing. I’ve been trying to think about “offense”/proactive steps.
The curious thing is, they're not. Records in Massachusetts showed that two-thirds of the "gay" marriages that took place were between women. When you consider that men are far more likely to be homosexual (about 2.5 percent of the male population) than women (1.4 percent of females), it means that a lesbian is about four times as likely to want "the ring" as a male homosexual. (That's women for ya, eh?)
So, no, homosexual males are not adopting the bourgeois life. Jonah doesn't get that because he doesn't accept that homosexuality is a real psychological phenomenon, and it's sick—not to mention poisonous to society. You can't legalize or regularize it, any more than you can regularize adultery, theft, or murder. All those behaviors are acts of war against society and virtue, and need to be marginalized, suppressed, and cured, like all sins, crimes, and disorders. Human nature is fallen, so the campaign never ends, but let's not be confused about what is normal.
Christmas stunk this year, I was stuck at work both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
I’ll be at work for New Year’s too.
*ugh*
At least I get time and a half for it.
As I said earlier, I was just trying to talk about how we deal with immorality not illegality. Is there anything to do aside from staying away from these people, not associating with them? Someone else just mentioned nose-picking; I don’t really see that as “immoral”, but there are all kinds of things people do that are “wrong” but not illegal. Does what I’m saying make sense? I don’t have an answer; I’ve been wondering if anyone else has come up with one.
I’m really sorry to hear that. We had so much family drama at Christmas, I almost wish I’d been working, too. ;)
I hope your 2011 is better.
Conservatives need to abandon organizations like CPAC that welcome homosexual groups to the convention too.
Treat them like pariahs. Fights their push for "rights".
Hope so too, this year was a rough one.
I had to replace my car because some punk kid drove through a red turn arrow and took the nose off of my car.
This past week was just ‘icing on the cake’ so to speak.
Of course, we should try to make sure that they are treated for their illness. Would you advocate just abandoning people with other mental illnesses?
Agreed.
They don't always want help. You can't force them. Well unless they commit a crime like using a child or prostitution.
Sorry about your car — did the kid have insurance, at least?
I wish we had the resources to help everyone with mental illness, under which umbrella I’d include drug addiction. ;(
I agree. I knew a really sweet man who lived on Venice Beach. Everyone called him Spoon. He was an alcoholic and had a lot of health problems, in addition to being confined to a wheelchair. Spoon told me he had a family, but he was living life on his own terms. It was such a sad situation.
These things were once exclusively determined and handled by society -in a free marketplace of ideas much like the economic free market. We see here government that was tasked with the responsibility now subverting it and imposing itself upon society whether it be education, immigration,or the homosexual agenda -really all of the illegitimate has the same root cause cause; overreaching big government.
The homosexual agenda is but one and the same with many government imposed centrally deemed mandates both moral and economic. I consider all these things but rotting fruits dropping from illegitimate branches from the Tree of Liberty. The seed sown thorough the rotting fruits must not be allowed to take root. The branches must be cut off, the Tree of Liberty pruned and restored...
The Tea Party has the right idea... Those that suggest only the fiscal is important are either part of the problem themselves or just useful idiots that will eventually get a clue and see the big picture that true conservatives see right now...
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